We Are Neighbors

We do not live in a terribly transient neighborhood.  People tend to stick around here.  So it is unusual that in the past month, I have gotten two new neighbors on either side.  I thought I would welcome them with a loaf of my moist Pumpkin Orange Tea Bread wrapped carefully in white paper and topped with a handmade tag.   I had this brainstorm for a cool tag when saw my old first grade reader lying about.  I just love the graphics in this old book and thought the cover would make an excellent tag.  Here is the image for you to use in case you have new neighbors to welcome.

And here is the recipe for a wonderfully moist pumpkin orange tea bread.  I love that it make two loaves one for you and one to share..unless you have two neighbors moving in at once!

Incredibly Moist Pumpkin Orange Tea Bread       from Loribeth’s Kitchen

Makes 2 loaves

Beat these ingredients in the mixer:

3 eggs 1 15 oz can pumpkin

¾ cup canola oil ½ cup water

1-3/4 cups sugar

1 whole orange processed in the food processor (skin and all) until it is soft pulp

Sift these ingredients together and add to the above mixture:

2-1/2 cups flour 1-1/2 tsp baking soda

1-1/4 tsp salt ¾ tsp nutmeg

¾ tsp cinnamon ½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ground ginger

Pour into 2 well greased and floured loaf pans.  Bake about 55 minutes at 350 degrees or until toothpick comes clean in center.  Cool completely and wrap up in saran.  These always taste better after they have aged overnight if you can wait that long.   The secret is that ground up orange!

Dolly Hospital

When I make a doll it is not like anything else I make.  I really do feel an attachment to each and every one and have mixed feelings about seeing them fly the nest...just like a mother.  It is not often they come back to me.  But this poor little lady suffered a traumatic house flood caused by a broken pipe and had the ceiling come in on her as she sat minding her own business.

After a bit of time in dolly hospital she is practically as good as new with a tale to tell.  Even though she was only created in 2006, she's already had her first big adventure.  Every doll has a tale to tell if it lives long enough.  Just like Hitty, one of my all time favorite books.

Getting intensive stain removal

 The indignities of being in hospital!

All healed with a new paper tag and looking better with just a few minor blemishes but that merely adds to her patina.

Maggi, if you are reading this your little lady is ready to come home!

Royal Sighting

Look who we bumped into on the 4th of July!

I have to say it was exciting to catch a glimpse of the newlyweds and they are a cute couple but I was just as excited to see these guys!

Mounties!!!   I have always loved the uniform. 

Big doings here today on PEI.

Respite

A little clue to where I am recharging my batteries and healing from some medical issues that have been plaguing me for the past months.

True Love

They say swans mate for life and I like monogamy in a creature....so romantic in the natural world.  I have been on my theme of making birds from the book The Artful Bird and here are my latest creations.

Obviously I couldn't just make one swan.  That would defeat the point.  So I made a lovely couple using vintage cotton pique and layered their wings with some old ruffled eyelet embroidered curtains that had seen better days.  Their beaks are sewn from scraps of wonderful old quilt pieces.

I think in the natural world the male is a little larger but I gave him a smart bow tie so there would be no questions.

And the female got a little swatch of old lace.

Mr. and Mrs. Swan 

A Strange Sighting in NH

This is not something you see everyday in New Hampshire.  A pink flamingo (not plastic) in my garden.  This is the mystery solved from the last post.  I have been working on some birds from Abigail Glassenberg's wonderful book The Artful Bird.  I had such fun putting together the pieces of the pattern and seeing this bird come to life.  I had envisioned something really cool for this load of hand dyed cheesecloth I picked up at a flea market.

I love the way the looped winged turned out.  I hand painted linen to make the body and beak so that I could get just the right variations of pink.  A little bit of vintage feedsack fabric was used for the gussets.

Now on to the swans!

Pink

Something fun I am working on... can you guess?